Facility Feature
Meadowland Farmers Elevator Constructs All-Steel Facility

Meadowland Farmers Cooperative Inc. receives, stores, and ships grain from nine locations around southwestern Minnesota, and many of them have been upgraded with state-of-the-art grain handling and storage equipment over the last two decades.

But until 2019, the cooperative had been operating a 150,000-bushel metal-clad wood elevator nearly a century old at its location in Westbrook, MN (507-274-6141),

“It was shot,” says Pete Valentin, a 30-year veteran at Meadowland and currently grain division manager coop-wide. “We tore it down in the winter of 2019.”

Standing in its place today is a $4.5 million all-steel elevator with a rated capacity of nearly 1.5 million bushels. It has been in operation since September 2019.

“All we kept from the old facility that we still use is a 100,000-bushel flat storage building,” Valentin says. “We’re strictly a truck house at Westbrook, though we do truck some grain to one of our rail terminals.”

General contractor and millwright on the new steel elevator was Elevator Works Inc., Lamberton, MN (507-752-7884). “They’ve done a lot of work for us,” Valentin says, “and we’ve had excellent performance from them.”

Steel Storage Features Two GSI Tanks

The new Westbrook elevator stores grain in three upright GSI tanks – two 105-foot diameter tanks holding 670,000 bushels each and a 30-foot-diameter, 100,000-bushel wet tank.

The two 105-foot tanks stand 83 feet tall at the eaves and 110 feet tall at the peaks. They have outside stiffeners, wraparound staircases, flat floors, 16-inch GSI X-Series sweep augers, and 23-cable Tri-States Grain Conditioning (TGSC) grain temperature monitoring systems. Both tanks also have sidedraw spouts.

Each of the tanks have a pair of GSI 60-hp centrifugal fans capable of generating 1/10 cfm per bushel of aeration through in-floor ducting.

The smaller tank stands 30 feet in diameter, 83 feet tall at the eave, and 111 feet tall at the peak. It has outside stiffeners, flat floor, 16-inch GSI X-Series sweep auger, and five-cable TSGC grain temperature monitoring system.

This tank is equipped with a pair of GSI 20-hp centrifugal fans capable of generating 1/10 cfm per bushel. Currently, aeration is the primary method of drying high-moisture grain stored there, since there is no grain dryer at Westbrook yet, though one could be added as the need arises. Valentin comments that wet grain can be blended out or hauled away.

Handling Systems Include Vande Berg Scale

Adjacent to the grain storage is a metal-sided office and grain receiving building, also erected by Elevator Works.

Incoming trucks deliver grain to an enclosed 1,100-bushel mechanical dump-through scale and receiving pit.

The 75-foot Vande Berg scale handles both inbound and outbound traffic and is under the control of an AgVantage software system. There currently is no truck probe; samples are taken by a hand-held probe and hand-graded in the office and grain lab.

The receiving pit delivers grain to a Schlagel 15,000-bph receiving leg, which has a single row of Tapco 18x8 heavy-duty buckets mounted on a 20-inch Continental belt supplied by Applied Power Products.

The leg delivers grain into a Schlagel four-duct swing-type electronic distributor, The distributor deposits grain onto Schlagel 15,000-bph drag conveyors running out to the big tanks on Warrior bridges, 30 and 58 feet long, respectively. The distributor also can reach the wet tank or a 5,000-bushel Meridian screenings tank via gravity spouts.

The leg, distributor, spouting, and the ends of the conveyors are encased in a Warrior support tower standing 14-feet-by-14-feet-by-136-feet with a switchback staircase.

The tanks empty onto 15,000-bph Schlagel drag conveyors in below-ground tunnels, which run back to the receiving leg.

Ed Zdrojewski, editor

From July/August 2021 Grain Journal

Meadowland Farmers Coop

• Lamberton, MN • 507-752-7352
• Founded: 1905
• Storage capacity: 32 million bushels at nine locations
• Annual volume: 50 million bushels
• Annual sales: $300 million
• Number of members: 1,800
• Number of employees: 127
• Crops handled: Corn, soybeans, hard red spring wheat
• Services: Grain handling and merchandising, feed, agronomy, energy, convenience stores

Key personnel at Westbrook:

• Pete Valentin, grain manager
• Kevin Zimmerman, location manager
• Gage Pilanski, assistant manager

Westbrook Supplier List

• Aeration fans • GSI
• Bearing sensors • AGI SURETRACK CMC
• Bin sweep • GSI
• Catwalk • Warrior Mfg. LLC
• Contractor • Elevator Works Inc.
• Control system • Anderson Electric
• Conveyors • Schlagel Inc.
• Distributor • Schlagel Inc.
• Electrical contractor • Anderson Electric
• Elevator buckets • Tapco Inc.
• Excavation • L&S Construction
• Grain temperature system • Tri-States Grain Conditioning Inc.
• Leg belting • Continental/Applied Power Products
• Millwright • Elevator Works Inc.
• Motion sensors • AGI SURETRACK CMC
• Motors • Toshiba International
• Speed reducers • Dodge
• Steel storage • GSI, Meridian Mfg. Inc.
• Steel tank erector • Global Bin Builders
• Tower support system • Warrior Mfg. LLC
• Truck scale • Vande Berg Scales
• Truck scale automation • AgVantage Software, Inc.